Show must go on (Snowfall)
Show must go on Part seven, Mission One, of Snowfall. Nobody can see us. But we can see them. Cheddar, Lottie, and I poke our heads through the open doorway and gape at the scene inside the Hall. At the back of the room is a large wooden platform, with two ends of it shielded by a red moss thing. On the platform are two twolegs. But the weird thing is, they look like cats. ''One of them is wearing white fur with two cat ears on its head and a fluffy tail, and the other is a bluish-grey with similar attire. “What are they doing? Why are they like cats?” I whisper to Cheddar. After all, he should know; he’s the one who dragged Lottie and I here in the first place. “The twolegs put on a school play every year based on this book series about wild cats who live in clans in a forest. It’s supposed to teach people about loyalty and rules and stuff. I’ve seen it once. It’s really good. And the twolegs have to act as cats. It’s funny to watch them fail.” Cheddar giggled as a cat-twoleg failed to jump up onto a rock. “Fail!” he whispered loudly. I tilted my head curiously. I used to live in a clan in a forest. Perhaps this has something to do with me. I turn around and start running to the library. “Nuts? Where are you going?” calls out Cheddar, but I ignore him. ''I have to find out what they’re doing, and fast. I spend the rest of the day on a laptop finding about the play. Several sheets of paper scrawled with notes sit beside me as I scroll through folders and folders of files. I sat up and leafed through my notes. “So the play is based on a book called warrior cats, about cats who live in the wild, teaches them about loyalty and friendship, performed on the 1st February.” I straighten suddenly. “That’s tomorrow!” I gasp to no-one in particular. I gather up my notes, roll them up and carry them in my mouth as I try and balance the laptop on my back. I find a spot near the wooden platform in the Hall and watch. I look up a copy of the book on the internet and read through the cliff notes, trying to match the current scene with the part of the summary I’m reading. At last I find the correct one, and start to read the chapter. Identifying the characters become easier, and soon I don’t even need to look up a character on the character list. I purr to myself as the show ends. “Jolly good show,” I meow as I take the stuff back to the cupboard that I shared with my friends. “Mmm.” Pi glanced at the package in front of him. “Mmm.” “Well?” snapped Delta impatiently. “Are you going to set it up or not? We only have until tomorrow night.” Pi glanced at the window next to him. The night was as black as ink. “Mmm,” he said again. Delta shrieked with rage. “I’ll set it up myself then!” Pi’s gaze flickered to the bluish-black cat sitting opposite him. He was used to Delta contacting him through phone, but now that he was here in person he didn’t quite know what to say. Using his claws, Delta tore into the package effortlessly and heaved out a black chunky thing. “This is a bomb,” he explained. “We’re going to put it under the stage, and it’ll detonate during the performance, killing at least two-hundred people.” Pi padded over to the black thing and lifted it onto a small pull-along trolley thing kids usually had. He picked up the rope in his teeth and pulled it along to the door. “You’ll set the bomb up, yeah?” Delta asked, almost pleadingly. Pi smiled and saluted his best friend with a paw. Delta purred. “That’s my soldier.” Pi’s smile now turned into an evil grin. “No-one will ever know. And i’f I’m lucky, I’ll get to kill Snowpaw too. That pesky she-cat could ruin everything.” He quickly glanced around, hoping she wasn’t there. A snarl came from Delta. “Idiot! Why would she be here?” “So she’s not here?” Pi asked. “No.” Delta shook his head. “Now lets get to business.” But what he didn’t realise that Snowpaw had been outside the door, and she had heard everything. “Bomb!” I scream as I race down the corridors. “Pi’s got a bomb!” As I race past my cupboard, Cheddar grabs me by my scruff and pulls me inside. “Where did you find this out?” he asks firmly. “This is serious, Nuts.” “I went to ask Pi about the play,” I pant, “And I heard him talking about a bomb with another cat. It’s going to be detonated during the play, tomorrow night. We don’t have much time.” I run for the door, but Cheddar hauls me back. “We need to evacuate everyone,” Cheddar explains to me firmly. “Go to the north side, I’ll do the west and the east, and Lottie will do the south.” He nudges a sleeping Lottie with a paw. “We’re evacuating everyone.” “W-wha?” Lottie yawns. “Give me a minute. I’m going to the south side, right?” She doesn’t wait for a reply and trots off. Cheddar looks at me. “We only have one night,” he reminds me. “Let’s go.” We take off down a corridor each, screaming, wailing, doing whatever we can to wake up cats and get the message to their brains. “Evacuate! Meet me in the car park!” I scream repeatedly. Soon the sun begins to rise, and I pick up my pace as I make my way outside. Cats are flooding the corridors, and I make a silent prayer to Starclan that we won’t be caught. “Take them to a safehouse,” I order to Cheddar and Lottie. “I’ll go inside to deactivate the bomb. “Nuts, you can’t!” protests Lottie, but I push past her and run towards the school, taking one last look at the cats I may never see again. Pi cursed to himself. He readied his pistol in his paws, stroking the trigger dearly. Kill or be killed, ''he muttered to himself. ''Delta is relying on me. I can’t let this fail. He saw a flash of brown, and pulled back the trigger, hard. He heard a bang, but no scream or signs of pain. He growled to himself and hopped into a small remote-control car he had made himself. The controls were simple, and it was just like a normal car, except it fitted his size perfectly. Time for a cathunt. Bang. A scream gets stuck in my throat as I recognise the sound: a gunshot. Someone’s trying to hunt me down and kill me. I gulp. I should have never chosen to back in here. A car’s engine starts behind me, and I gulp. Not only I’m going to get shot, but I’ll get run over by a car too. Great. I’m going to die. Sarcasm. I scream slightly as gunshots go off, but luckily none of them come near me. Then I turn around and do the stupidest thing: I jump onto the car. Pi screams and fires gunshots randomly, and I hiss and swipe at his face, remembering my warrior training. Soon Pi runs out of bullets and tries to hit me with the gun. Somehow I manage to catch it in my mouth, and I spit it out onto the floor. The car is still going forwards at an alarming place. My fur bristles with alarm as I notice that we’re about to crash into a door. I duck, and the car slams against the door. The car spins around randomly, and Pi screams in horror and pain. “What did you do?” he screams at me. He drags me out from under the wreckage and pins me down to the ground. His eyes are rolling about, and foam bubbles out of his mouth. “Ever since you came, my plots are failing. I know who you are, Snowpaw.” I wince as he mentions my real name. “You’re a member of FROST. You’re a clan cat. You’re my enemy.” He stares down at me, his claws glinting in the harsh light. “And now, i’m going to kill you.” Pi slices his claws down my face, and I cry out in pain. He drags me towards a dark place, fetches some rope, and ties me to the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I notice a big, shiny thing. The bomb. I am trapped next to the bomb. “You’re insane!” I spit out, writing against the rope. Pi just grins at me. “Any last words, Snowpaw?” “Drop dead,” I hiss. Pi shook his head. “Oh Snowpaw, please, don’t talk to yourself.” I tilt my head in confusion. “Just go away,” I hiss. Pi smiles at me madly. “The clock is ticking, Snowpaw,” he laughs. I snarl at him. “I’ll be rescued,” I say, remembering the time I was rescued by Snarl and Silence. Pi laughs maniacally. “Nobody can save you now, Snowpaw.” I hear him press a button. “Ten minutes remaining,” says a voice. It’s not me; or Pi; it’s the bomb. Fox dung. I’m going to die in ten minutes. “Goodnight,” he says in a kit’s voice, and flicks a light switch. Nobody can save me now. Lottie stared longingly at the main doors of the school. “She’s not out yet…” her voice trailed off in a sob. Cheddar reassuringly licked her ears. “She’s just taking her time,” Cheddar comforted her. He still couldn’t Lottie felt a surge of confidence and shrugged Cheddar off her. “I’m going in there,” she meowed. “I can’t lose you too, Lottie!” cried out Cheddar over the noise of an approaching helicopter. The wind from the blades buffeted his fur and soon he was swept off his paws. He yelped in astonishment as two cats jumped out: a cream she-cat with silver spots and a white tom with scars on his pelt. “This is the second time this week,” muttered the tom as he pulled out a metal thing and ran into the school. Lottie watched the whole scene unfold and her hopes lifted a little. Perhaps Nuts was going to live after all. Jamie looked up from his book to see Mrs. Hopkins, the drama teacher. “Rehearsal!” she barked. “Costumes on, quick!” Jamie smiled to himself. He put down his copy of ''Rising Storm, ''the book that the play was based on. He dressed into his flame-coloured cat outfit, and slipped on the mask. He admired the detail and the fur. He still couldn’t believe that he’d got the main part. They trooped together to the Hall. Jamie’s best friend, Mark, smiled at him in his costume. They were best friends, and their characters were best friends. Perfect. “Chapter Six,” Mrs. Hopkins grunted. “You know where to go.” Jamie and some other cats stepped onto the stage. They positioned themselves, and the scene began. “Star clan grants us fair passage,” said the girl who was playing Bluestar stubbornly. “Go home!” the boy opposite them snarled. Jamie smiled. It was coming along so well. He remembered his line: “We should go home,” he hissed to the girl playing Bluestar. She looked at him in disbelief. “We’re too far from safety and this isn’t a battle we can fight,” he urged her. “But I must speak with Starclan!” the girl almost shouted. Jamie was impressed at how much she had improved. “Another time,” Jamie insisted. “We’d not win this battle.” The girl sighed. “Very well, we’ll go home. But we will return. You cannot cut us off from Starclan forever!” she declared triumphantly. “You’ve made a wise decision,” the boy dressed in brown replied. Jamie took a pace closer to the boy, just as the script told him to do. “Did you hear what Bluestar said? We will leave this time, but you will never again stop us from travelling to the Moonstone.” The other boy turned away. “We’ll escort you back to Fourtrees.” The boy led Jamie and the girl off the stage then on again. In the real performance, the scene would be quickly changed. “Are you alright?” he asked, stopping. The girl shook her head. “Star clan does not want to share dreams with me,” she muttered. “Why are they so angry with my clan?” “Wind clan stood in our way, not Starclan,” Jamie said. They walked off the stage and on again, along with a load of other children dressed in cat costumes. A boy dressed in dark brown approached them, followed by another smaller boy in grey. “You’re back early,” he said. “Wind clan wouldn’t let us pass,” explained Jamie. “Didn’t you tell them that you were going to Highstones?” asked the boy. “Of course,” Jamie snapped. Another boy joined them on stage, followed by a small girl. “What are you doing back?” he asked. “Wind clan wouldn’t let them pass,” the brown-costumed boy announced loudly. From the back of the hall, Mrs. Hopkins clapped her hands in delight. “How dare they!” spat the other boy. He wore a silver costume with black stripes. “I don’t know why Fireheart let them boss him around,” the brown-clothed boy playing Dustpelt said. Jamie growled. “I didn’t have much choice. Would ''you ''have risked your leader’s safety?” Another boy joined them onstage. “Fireheart! Have you seen Cloudpaw anywhere?” “No,” Jamie sounded worried. “I thought he was going out with you this afternoon.” The scene was interrupted by Mrs. Hopkins clapping. “That’s enough for today! We’ll finish with a quick run-through of the whole thing before breaktime.” Silence frantically skittered across the polished tiled floor. “We have to find Snowpaw!” she screeched. “If I hadn’t checked the security cameras of the school we would’ve been too late!” “Where is she?” panted Snarl. “Last time I checked she was in the hall, being dragged under the stage.” She was about to burst into the hall when Snarl held her back. He dragged Silence to the side. “There’s people in there!” he hissed. “We must enter in from the side.” His gaze flickered to a corridor. “Let’s go.” Silence followed him to a side door and crept in. She dashed into a dark hole, her breathing loud and heavy. “Oh Snowpaw, where are you?” she sobbed. She stopped suddenly as she heard a scuffling noise. “Silence? Is that you?” Silence fumbled around for Snowpaw, and cried into her fur as she found her. “You’re alive.” “One minute remaining.” Silence stopped dead. “That’s the bomb,” Snowpaw whispered. “I’m bound to the floor with rope and you need to cut me free.” Survival instincts kicked in. Silence grabbed the pocketknife from her collar and began to saw frantically into the rope. “Come on,” she urged as she dragged Snowpaw outside. “Snarl’s waiting for us and we have to run.” Snowpaw tilted her head upwards to look at her. “Thank you,” she croaked before falling unconscious. I scream as a loud explosion sounds behind me and pieces of concrete rain down. “We’re almost out!” Silence yells. “Hold on, Snowpaw!” She swerves to avoid being crushed to death. Snarl lopes behind us. We collapse on the concrete outside the school, gulping in fresh air. “We made it,” Silence pants. She staggers to her paws and shakes off the dust. Snarl nudges me towards the helicopter parked a few metres away. “This is too dangerous,” he meows firmly. “I should have given you more training first.” “Wait.” I shrug him off and turn to face them. “There’s one thing I want to do first.” Silence tilts her head in confusion, so does Snarl. “What? Surely there’s nothing left for you to do. The school has been destroyed.” I laugh, slightly maniacally. “I should have decided to do this long ago.” The others wait for me to finish. “I want to kill Pi.”